So after many a moon of often lame and often low-quality filler we get new Naruto episodes. Well, really a whole new Natuto series: Naruto Shippuuden. The new series take place two and half years after the end of series one. Naruto has been off training with the Toad Hermit, Jiraiya.

The hour long first episode special is more of a teaser. The first 5-10 min are a bit of foreshadowing as Naruto and Sakura finely track down Sasuke and just when things start getting interesting we roll opening credit and are now back in the Hidden Leaf Village and see the changes that have take place over the last couple of years as Naruto returns. The episode ends with Naruto and Sakura once again getting ready to try to take a couple of bells from Kakashi.

Over all the hour special was pretty good. The animation quality is back up on par with the early episodes and a great deal better than some the filler episodes animation. There was really only about one episodes worth of story tho with the balance taken up the short little cut scenes either showing the changes to Naruto and Sakura, or with the other charters showing part of some secret word thing. No big action scenes tho, those are going to have to wait for the next episode.

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